SIGNS OF THE END | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1880

SIGNS OF THE END.

THE Illustrated Christian Weekly says: “It cannot be denied that in the moral and religious tone of society at large all the world over, there has been a deterioration and a failure to respond to former remedies, of increasing and notable character. The average Christian conscience has lost much of its tenderness, and does not hesitate to act upon principles, which even a generation since would have been accepted with great hesitation.

“The lines of Christian conformity to the maxims and amusements of the world are much more loosely drawn. The participation in theatrical and operatic exhibitions, the mingling in dances, and Sabbath indulgences of reading, and riding, and neglect of the service of God, were very differently regarded then by most professors of religion. And as the evil has extended the old remedies of religious warning and instruction have greatly failed of their former effects.

“Is there then, some general cause which is affecting the world morally and spiritually, as well as physically? Are we drawing nigh to the ‘last day,’ when ‘perilous times shall come?’ ‘For men shall’ then, the apostle tells us, ‘be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.’”

The feature of depravity described in the concluding clause, which no one but God could have foreseen, is peculiarly characteristic of the present age.